PUNCH,
OR, THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOLUME 98.

MARCH 15, 1890.

MR. PUNCH'S MORAL MUSIC-HALL DRAMAS.

No. VIII.—JACK PARKER;
Or, The Bull who knew his Business.
Characters.

Jack Parker ("was a cruel boy, For mischief was his sole employ." Vide Miss Jane Taylor.)

Miss Lydia Banks ("though very young, Will never do what's rude or wrong."—Ditto.)

Chorus of Farm Hands.

Scene—A Farmyard. R. a stall, from which the head of the Bull is visible above the half-door. Enter Farmer Banks with a cudgel.

Farmer B. (moodily).

When roots are quiet, and cereals are dull,

I vent my irritation on the Bull.

[We have Miss Taylor's own authority for this rhyme.

Come hup, you beast! (Opens stall and flourishes cudgel—the Bull comes forward with an air of deliberate defiance.)

Oh, turning narsty, is he?

(Apologetically, to Bull.)

Another time will do! I see you're busy!

[The Bull, after some consideration, decides to accept this retractation, and retreats with dignity to his stall, the door of which he carefully fastens after him. Exit Farmer Banks, L., as Lydia Banks enters R., accompanied by Chorus. The Bull exhibits the liveliest interest in her proceedings, as he looks on, with his forelegs folded easily upon the top of the door.

Song—Lydia Banks (in Polka time.)

I'm the child by Miss Jane Taylor sung;

Unnaturally good for one so young—

A pattern for the people that I go among,

With my moral little tags on the tip of my tongue,

And I often feel afraid that I shan't live long,

For I never do a thing that's rude or wrong!

Chorus (to which the Bull beats time).

As a general rule, one doesn't live long,

If you never do a thing that's rude or wrong!

Second Verse.

My words are all with wisdom fraught,

To make polite replies I've sought;

And learned by independent thought,

That a pinafore, inked, is good for nought.

So wonderfully well have I been taught,

That I turn my toes as children ought!

Chorus (to which the Bull dances).

This moral lesson she's been taught—

She turns her toes as children ought!

Lydia (sweetly).

Yes, I'm the Farmer's daughter—Lydia Banks;

No person ever caught me playing pranks!

I'm loved by all the live-stock on the farm,

[Ironical applause from the Bull.

Pigeons I've plucked will perch upon my arm,

And pigs at my approach sit up and beg,

[Business by Bull.

For me the partial Peacock saves his egg,

No sheep e'er snaps if I attempt to touch her,

Lambs like it when I lead them to the butcher!

Each morn I milk my rams beneath the shed,

While rabbits flutter twittering round my head,

And, as befits a dairy-farmer's daughter,

What milk I get I supplement with water,

[A huge Shadow is thrown on the road outside; Lydia starts.

Whose shadow is it makes the highway darker?

That bullet head! those ears! it is——Jack Parker!

[Chord. The Chorus flee in dismay, as Jack enters with a reckless swagger.

Song—Jack Parker.

I'm loafing about, and I very much doubt if my excellent Ma is aware that I'm out;

My time I employ in attempts to annoy, and I'm not what you'd call an agreeable boy!

I shoe the cats with walnut-shells;

Tin cans to curs I tie;

Ring furious knells at front-door bells—

Then round the corner fly!

'Neath donkeys' tails I fasten furze,

Or timid horsemen scare;

If chance occurs, I stock with burrs

My little Sister's hair!

[The Bull shakes his head reprovingly.

Such tricks give me joy without any alloy,—but they do not denote an agreeable boy!

[As Jack Parkerconcludes, the Bull ducks cautiously below the half-door, while Lydia conceals herself behind the pump, L.C.

Jack (wandering about Stage, discontentedly).

I thought at least there'd be some beasts to badger here!

Call this a farm—there ain't a blooming spadger here!

[Approaches stall—Bull raises head suddenly.

A bull! This is a lark I've long awaited!

He's in a stable, so he should be baited.

[The Bull shows symptoms of acute depression at this jeu de mot; Lydia comes forward indignantly.

Lydia.

I can't stand by and see that poor bull suffer!

Excitement's sure to make his beef taste tougher!

[The Bull emphatically corroborates this statement.

Be warned by Miss Jane Taylor; fractured skulls

Invariably come from teasing bulls!

So let that door alone, nor lift the latchet;

For if the bull gets out—why, then you'll catch it!

Jack.

A fractured skull? Yah, don't believe a word of it!

[Raises latchet; chord; Bull comes slowly out, and crouches ominously; Jack retreats, and takes refuge on top of pump; the Bull, after scratching his back with his off foreleg, makes a sudden rush at Lydia.

Lydia (as she evades it)

,

Here, help!—it's chasing.

Me!—it's too absurd of it!

Go away, Bull—with me you have no quarrel!

[The Bull intimates that he is acting from a deep sense of duty.

Lydia (impatiently).

You stupid thing, you're ruining the moral!

[The Bull persists obstinately in his pursuit.

Jack (from top of pump).

Well dodged, Miss Banks! although the Bull I'll back!

[Enter Farm-hands.

Lydia.

Come quick—this Bull's mistaking me for Jack!

Jack.

He knows his business best, I shouldn't wonder.

Farm-hands (philosophically).

He ain't the sort o' Bull to make a blunder.

[They look on.

Lydia (panting).

Such violent exercise will soon exhaust me!

[The Bull comes behind her.

Oh, Bull, it is unkind of you ... you've tossed me!

[Falls on ground, while the Bull stands over her, in readiness to give the coup de grace;

Lydia calls for help.

A Farm-hand (encouragingly).

Nay, Miss, he seems moor sensible nor surly—

He knows as how good children perish early!

[The Bull nods in acknowledgment that he is at last understood, and slaps his chest with his forelegs.

Lydia.

Bull, I'll turn naughty, if you'll but be lenient!

Goodness, I see, is sometimes inconvenient.

I promise you henceforth I'll try, at any rate,

To act like children who are unregenerate!

[The Bull, after turning this over, decides to accept a compromise.

Jack.

And, Lydia, when you ready for a lark are,

Just give a chyhike to your friend—Jack Parker!

[They shake hands warmly.

Finale.

Lydia.

I thought to slowly fade away so calm and beautiful.

(Though I didn't mean to go just yet);

But you get no chance for pathos when you're chivied by a bull!

(So I thought I wouldn't go just yet.)

For I did feel so upset, when I found that all you get

By the exercise of virtue, is that bulls will come and hurt you!

That I thought I wouldn't go just yet!

Chorus.

We hear, with some regret,

That she doesn't mean to go just yet.

But a Bull with horns that hurt you is a poor return for virtue,

And she's wiser not to go just yet!

[The Bull rises on his hindlegs, and gives a forehoof each to Lydia and Jack, who dance wildly round and round as the Curtain falls.

[N.B.—Music-hall Managers are warned that the morality of this particular Drama may possibly be called in question by some members of the L. C. C.]

A RETIRING YOUNG MAN.

(Positively his Last Appearance.)

I linger on the same old stage

Which I have graced so long,

Though oft, when sick, or in a rage,

I've sworn to give up song,

Still somehow, like mellifluous Reeves,

I flow, and flow, and flow.

Stage-stars, though fond of taking leaves

Are very loth to go.

Teutons, once again,

Greet me once again!

Old songs I'm singing,

Shall I sing in vain?

Once more I front the same old House,

And hear the same "Encore!"

My rivals slink as slinks the mouse

When Leo lifts his roar.

I'll take my turn with potent voice,

In solo or in glee.

At my rentrée my friends rejoice

They only wanted Me!

Teutons, once again!

Greet me once again!

Old strength is waking,

Shall it wake in vain?

THE CRY OF THE CITY CHILDREN.

(For Playing Fields.)

[A conference of delegates of various Athletic Clubs was held on March 4, in the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, for the purpose of considering the necessity for the further provision of Playing fields for the people of the Metropolis.]

Would you see Town Children playing, O my brothers,

With their bats and leathern spheres?

They are herding where the slum-reek fumes and smothers,

And that isn't play, one fears.

The young rustics bat in verdant meadows,

The young swells are "scrummaging" out west;

They are forming future Graces, Stoddarts, Hadows;

They are having larks, which, after all, is best.

But the young Town Children, O my brothers,

They are mooning all the day;

They are idling in the play-time of the others,

For they have no place to play!

Do you recollect they used to play at cricket

In the bye-streets years ago,

With a broomstick for a bat, a coat for wicket?

Now the Bobbies hunt them so!

The old ladies grumble at their skipping;

The old gents object to their tip-cat;

So they squat midst slums that shine like dirty dripping,

Not knowing what the dickens to be at.

And the young Town Children, O my brothers,

Do you ask them why they stand

Making mud-pies, to the horror of their mothers,

In their dirty Fatherland?

They look up with their pale and grubby faces,

And they answer—"Cricket? Us?

Only wish we could, but then there ain't no places;

Wot's the good to make a fuss?

Yes, you're right, Guv, this is dirty fun and dreary;

But 'Rounders' might just bring us 'fore the Beak,

And if we dropped our peg-top down a airey,

They would hurry up and spank us for our cheek.

Arsk the swell 'uns to play cricket, not us nippers;

We must sit here damp and dull,

'Midst the smell of stale fried fish and oily kippers,

'Cos the Town's so blooming full."

True, true O children! I of old have seen you

Playing peg-top, aye, like mad.

In the side-streets, and upon a village green you

Could scarce have looked more glad.

I have seen you fly the kite, and eke "the garter",

Send your "Rounders'" ball a rattling down the street.

If you tried such cantrips now you'd catch a tartar

In the vigilant big Bobby on his beat.

If you tossed the shuttle-cook or bowled the hoop now,

A-1's pounce would be your doom.

In the streets at Prisoner's Base you must not troop now,

There's no longer any room!

So you sit and smoke the surreptitious 'baccy,

And deal in scurril chaff;

Vulgar Jenny boldly flirts with vicious Jacky,

You're too knowing now by half.

They're unchildish imps, these Children of the City,

Bold and blasé, though their life has scarce begun,

Growing callous little ruffians—ah, the pity!—

For the lack of open space, and youthful fun.

Bedford's Bishop says the Cricket pitch is driven

Further, further, every day;

And the crowded City grows—well not a heaven,

Where there is no room for play.

So, if Cricketers and Footballers, who gather,

Find Town Children space for sport,

Punch will be extremely pleased with them; so, rather,

Will the thralls of lane and court.

Alfred Lyttleton, so keen behind the wicket;

Lord Kinnaird, who once was hot upon the ball,

Give our Arabs chance of football and of cricket.

And you'll fairly earn the hearty thanks of all;

For the young City Children, doomed to rummage

In dim alleys foul as Styx,

Never else may know the rapture of a "scrummage,"

Or "a slashing drive for Six!"

A Desirable "Raikes'" Progress.—In the direction of concession to the overworked and underpaid Post-Office employés.

APPRECIATIVE.

Amateur Tenor. "I shall just sing one more Song, and then I shall go."

Sarcastic Friend. "Couldn't you go First!"

A JUBALEE PERFORMANCE.

Dear Mr. Punch,—After The Cotter's Saturday Night, which is a fine broad Scotch setting of Rantin' Roarin' Robbie's poem, came The Dream of Jubal. This, as I take it, was a work produced in the Jubalee Year. I don't know who Jubal was, at least I've only a vague idea. Rather think he was a partner of Tubal, Tubal, Jubal & Co., Instrument Makers. From this Oratorio I gather that Jubal was an enthusiastic amateur, but that the only musical instrument he possessed was a tortoise-shell,—whether comb or simple shell I couldn't quite make out. However, comb or shell, he worked hard at it, until one morning, when he was practising outside the house (I expect Tubal & Co. wouldn't stand much of it indoors), the birds started a concert in opposition to his solo. This quite drowned his feeble notes, and drove him half frantic. In despair he lay down under the shade of a tree and fell asleep, and in his dreams he saw the instrument which he had invented gradually developed into a "Strad", and from that into the most glorious instrument of our time; namely, the banjo. This so soothed and pleased him, that, waking up, he adorned his tortoise-shell with flowers, and sang aloud to all his descendants in all time and tune, and out of all time and tune, if necessary, to join him in praising the invention of Music generally, and of this Jubalee instrument in particular.

Mr. Joseph Bennett has given a most effective description of the dream; the accompanied recitation being very fine indeed, and splendidly performed by Miss Julia Neilson, who, like Jubal, has been in the Tree's Shadow at the Haymarket. Fine triumphal march and chorus. Your own Maggie McIntyre, and your Mr. Barton McGuckin, were in excellent form, and everybody was delighted, with the exception of one person,—who is always à peu près, never quite satisfied, and therefore rightly named,

"All-but Hall, S.W."

"Harlowe there!"—This now familiar exclamation might be appropriately adopted as the motto of the Vaudeville Theatre during the run of Clarissa. She does run, too, poor dear—first from home, then from Lovelace's, and then "anywhere, anywhere, out of the world!" By the way, is it quite fair of Mr. Thomas Thorne, in the absence of a friend and brother comedian, to speak of himself, as he does in this piece, as "a mere Toole"? How can such a metamorphosis have taken place? We trust that Mr. Thomas Thorne, Temporary Tragedian, will amend his sentiments.

Sir W. V. Harcourt, on the night when he was so huffy, "left the House." True: he certainly did not "carry the House with him."

MODERN TYPES.

(By Mr. Punch's Own Type-Writer.)
No. IV.—THE GIDDY SOCIETY LADY.

The Giddy Lady is one who, having been plunged at an early age into smart society, is whirled perpetually round in a vortex of pleasures and excitements. In the effort to keep her head above water, she is as likely as not to lose it. This condition she naturally describes as "being in the swim." In the unceasing struggle to maintain herself there, she may perhaps shorten her life, but she will apparently find a compensation in the increased length of her dressmaker's bills. She is ordinarily the daughter of aristocratic parents, who carefully allowed her to run wild from the moment she could run at all. By their example she has been taught to hold as articles of her very limited faith, that the serious concerns of life are of interest only to fools, and should, therefore (though the inference is not obvious), be entirely neglected by herself, and that frivolity and fashion are the twin deities before whom every self-respecting woman must bow down.

Having left the Seminary at which she acquired an elementary ignorance of spelling, a smattering of French phrases as used by English lady novelists, and a taste for music which leads her in after-life to prefer Miss Bessie Bellwood to Beethoven, she is soon afterwards brought out at a smart dance in London. From this point her progress is rapid. Balls and concerts, luncheons and receptions, dinners and theatres, race meetings and cricket matches, at both of which more attention is paid to fashion than to the field, follow one another in a dizzy succession. She has naturally no time for thought, but in order to avoid the least suspicion of it, she learns to chatter the slang of the youthful Guardsmen and others who are her companions. A certain flashing style of beauty ensures to her the devotion of numerous admirers, to whom she babbles of "chappies" and "Johnnies," and "real jam" and "stony broke," and "two to one bar one," as if her life depended upon the correct pronunciation of as many of these phrases as possible in the shortest time on record. She thus comes to be considered a cheerful companion, and at the end of her third season, marries a jaded man of pleasure, whose wealth is more considerable than his personal attractions, and who, for some inscrutable reason, has been approved by her parents as a suitable husband.

She treats matrimony as an emancipation from rules which she has rarely seen any one else observe, and has never honoured herself, and after a few years, she becomes one of that gaudy band of Society ladies who follow with respectful imitation the giddy vagaries of the Corinthians of a lower grade. She dines often without her husband at smart restaurants, where she has constant opportunities of studying the manners of her models. She adores the burlesques at the Gaiety and the Avenue, and talks, with a complete absence of reserve and a disregard of pedantic accuracy, about the lives and adventures of the actresses who figure there. She can tell you, and does, who presented Lottie A. with a diamond star, and who was present at the last supper-party in honour of Tottie B. Nor is she averse to being seen and talked about in a box at a Music-Hall, or at one of the pleasure-palaces in Leicester Square. She allows the young men who cluster round her to suppose that she knows all about their lapses from strict propriety, and that she commends rather than condemns them. Causes célèbres are to her a staple of conversation, her interest in them varying directly as the number of co-respondents.

It is impossible, therefore, that the men who are her friends should treat her with that chivalrous respect which an obsolete tradition would seem to require, but they suffer no loss of her esteem in consequence. Such being her behaviour in the society of men, the tone of her daily conversation with friends of her own sex may be readily imagined, though it might not be pleasant to describe. Suffice it to say, that she sees no shame in addressing them, or in allowing herself to be addressed by a name which a Court of law has held to be libellous when applied to a burlesque actress. She is always at Hurlingham or the Ranelagh, and has seen pigeons killed without a qualm. She never misses a Sandown or a Kempton meeting; she dazzles the eyes of the throng at Ascot every year, and never fails at Goodwood.

Twice a year the Giddy Lady is compelled by the traditions of her caste to visit Paris, in order to replenish her exhausted wardrobe. On these occasions she patronises only the best hotel, and the most expensive and celebrated of men-dressmakers, and she is "fitted" by a son of the house, of whom she talks constantly and familiarly by his Christian name as Jean, or Pierre, or Philippe. During the shooting season she goes from country-house to country-house. She has been seen sometimes with a gun in her hands, often with a lighted cigarette between her lips. Indeed she is too frequent a visitor at shooting-luncheons and in smoking-rooms, where a woman, however much she may attempt to disguise her sex, is never cordially welcomed by men. The conventions of the society in which she moves seem to require that she should be attended during her visits by a cavaliere servente, who is therefore always invited with her. Their pastime is to imitate a flirtation, and to burlesque love, but neither of them is ever deceived into attributing the least reality to this occupation, which is often as harmless as it is always absurd.

These and similar occupations, of course, leave her no time to attend to her children, who are left to grow up as best they may under the fostering care of nursery-maids and of such relations as may choose, from time to time, to burden themselves with the olive-branches of others. Her husband has long since retired from all competition with her, and leaves her free to follow her own devices, whilst he himself follows the odds. She is often supposed to be riding for a fall. It is certain that her pace is fast. Yet, though many whisper, it is quite possible that she will ride to the end without open damage.

Of her dress and her jewels it need only be said that she affects tailor-made costumes and cat's-eye bangles by day, and that at night she escapes by the skin of her teeth from that censure which the scantiness of her coverings would seem to warrant, and which Mr. Horsley, R.A., if he saw her, would be certain to pronounce.

In middle age she loses her brilliant complexion. Yet, for reasons best known to herself, her colour continues to be bright, though her spirits and her temper seem to suffer in the effort to keep it so. As old age advances, she is as likely as not to become a gorgon of immaculate propriety, and will be heard lamenting over the laxity of manners which permits girls to do what was never dreamt of when she was a girl herself.

THE PINT OF IT.

How curious that our youngest boy, aged fifteen months, should have already become partially paralysed, and be afflicted, besides, with anæmia, rickets, and growing inability to digest the smallest particle of food!

If it were not that we procure our milk from the "Hygienic Unskimmed Lacteal Fluid and Food for Babes Company, Limited," I should begin to believe that there might be something wrong with the beverage which forms the staple of his infantile dietary.

The Company professes to sell milk "pure from the cow." From the quality of this morning's supply, I should be inclined to fancy that that cow is suffering from an advanced stage of atrophy.

As our eldest child, aged two-and-a-half, is still totally unable to walk, and its legs have become mere shrivelled sticks, I really must call in an Analyst to test our milk.

Heavens! The Analyst reports that more than half the cream has been "separated"—which seems to mean removed—and that its place has been supplied by "65 per cent. of impure water."

Under these circumstances, I hardly think that the fine of five shillings, and half-a-crown costs, which the Magistrate has inflicted on the Company, quite meets the justice of the case, or will be sufficient to stop such adulteration in the future.

Buffalo Bill and Leo Pope.

Went Buffalo Bill to see the Pope pass by.

Then were the Cow-boys cowed by the Pope's eye,

With which, like many an English-speaking glutton,

They'd often met, and fastened on, in mutton.

The difference vast at once they did espy,

Betwixt a sheep's eye and a Leo's eye.